


One Wish, For The Better

by I_Will_Go_Down (ZeroToWeirdo)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Death, Do-Over, Fix-It, Implied Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, M/M, at least not yet, but don't worry, but not really, it's temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeroToWeirdo/pseuds/I_Will_Go_Down
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They were dead; they came home just to die and be buried. Was it worth it? Was it better to lie in your fathers tombs than to live without them? Yavanna help him, he could not help but think they had all drawn the short straw in this decision of fate."</p><p>If you had one wish to make the world a better place, what would you wish for?</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Wish, For The Better

For what seemed like the hundredth time in the past 15 minutes since Bilbo  had begun his search for solitude, he found himself hastily dabbing his wet eyes and passing a Dwarf. One would think that in a fortress as immense and sprawling as Erebor, one would be able to find a little bloody privacy. Erebor was supposed to be _desolate,_ after all. And for all the Dwarves from the Iron Hills milling about making a fuss and a clamor about everything, that was exactly what Erebor was to Bilbo. Desolate. Cold. A barren waste.

  
For the King was dead, as were his two heirs, and the line of Durin was cut short. Bilbo felt his chest seize even tighter at the thought, his need to be alone more pressing than ever, though the walls of Erebor and all they stood for (pride, gold, death) seemed to press down on Bilbo. Swift Hobbit feet soon found themselves marching to the main entrance of Erebor. By the time he passed the front gates (and a few bewildered Dwarves) tears were streaming down his face and his chest was heaving with wracking sobs. He did not stop till he was far from Erebor, from the sight that brought those tears to his eyes. The Lonely Mountain, that should have remained lonely.

  
They were dead; they came home just to die and be buried. Was it worth it? Was it better to lie in your fathers tombs than to live without them? Yavanna help him, he could not help but think they had all drawn the short straw in this decision of fate. 

  
“Are the Valar not fair and just?” he sobbed aloud to nothing but the graying tall grass and boulders around him. 

  
“Does Mahal not love his children, that the line of Durin end?” he screamed louder to the sky. No one was here to witness his cries of anguish- there was no one to restrain himself for.

  
”Does Yavanna not love _her_ children, that she put me through such heartache…that I should gain a new family only to lose it to another cold and bitter end?” he shouted in a single breath till his voice cracked and petered down to a cracked whisper. 

  
The rustling of the breeze through the long grass was his only response. He hadn’t expected much else, but the reminder that he was utterly alone brought him to his knees, his body shaking with the sobs and the muffled ‘Why’s he continued to cry into his hands. 

  
He did not know how long he was there; seconds, days, years. He felt as though ages had come and gone with sharp shale digging into his knees and the cold wind tossing his already unruly locks. The wind had turned bitingly cold, another indicator of passing time, and Bilbo wondered if he’d survive a night out in his simple Hobbit clothes…wondered if he cared. It was at the end of this thought, when he felt a warmth spreading over his shoulders and back, seeping into his core and warming him almost to the depths of his tired heart. Could this be a dream? Such relief from his agony could only be a dream.

 

Peering through swollen eyes up at the presence beside him, Bilbo found a woman of immeasurable splendor kneeling beside him. She glowed green and gold like Spring and Summer combined, her warmth reminding him of the hearth in Bag End in times of chill. Around his shoulders was a green cloak, and her arms too twined about him in a loose embrace, and he took comfort in those arms, feeling like a babe swaddled in the arms of a mother. She was no stranger. He knew her on sight.

 

“Yavanna…” he hadn’t realized the state of his throat till his barely recognizable voice croaked out that one name.

 

“My child…why do you weep?” her voice sounded like the wind rustling through tall oak trees back in the Shire. He could not hear her words, and yet he knew what she said.

 

Bilbo sniffled gently and looked down, almost ashamed to feel the pulse of anguish returning to his chest even while he laid in the comfort of a Valar. “I weep because I have lost everything.”

 

“Surely, not everything.” She insisted gently, her fingers curling about his shoulders, calling to mind Bag End and his books and his garden. His simple life that he could only now call lonely.

 

“Everything that mattered most.” he sobbed out.

 

She held him close, whispering soothingly even as his entire frame trembled in her arms. “Little one…littlest one…you are so brave, so very brave among all others that call themselves steadfast. Cry now, that no more tears shall be left. Cry now, that no more tears shall taint your hope.”

 

“What hope?” even saying the word felt like a fallacy to Bilbo. Surely the word had lost its meaning since Thorin’s eyes turned vacant. 

 

“The hope I have come to give you.”

 

A hope…she had come to give him a hope? He turned his eyes once more to her face, staring in wonder. A hope, from the Valar to him? She nodded her assertion to his unspoken question.

 

"If I were to grant you one request, give you one wish…that you may make the world a better place…what would you choose, littlest one?”

 

“Are you? Going to grant me a wish?” he asked desperately, already hearing the words ‘Thorin’ and ‘Alive’ racing through his mind like a whirlwind.

 

“It depends on your wish, on the strength of your desire, and on the selflessness of your heart.”

 

The selflessness of his heart? Now that just sounded like a riddle…what if wishing Thorin alive was deemed too selfish and the wish wasn’t granted?! “Give me a moment?” he asked quickly, and he was suddenly reminded of his riddling match with the creature Gollum in the cave. This too was a life or death situation. As Yavanna’s gentle laugh sifted through the air, though, he could not help but think that in this case, his competition was far more pleasant. 

 

“Alright Bilbo, now we must think. If I were to wish Thorin alive, Fili and Kili would still be gone. If I were to wish for all three to live, would that not be three wishes? Bother…If I were to wish for a death of the Pale Orc, then- but no, that would not turn the tide of the war, and it does not change Fili or Kili’s fate. Perhaps if I wish he had never been born…” as though struck by inspiration, Bilbo suddenly knew. He knew what to wish.

 

Turning once more to Yavanna, he whispered solemnly “I wish…I wish that Smaug never came to be.”

 

She hummed in what seemed like contemplation. “But that will not bring you near to your King, to the One you lost.” She replied.

 

“No…but he’ll be alive. And he’ll be happy. They’ll all be happy.” he replied quickly, hoping this would be enough to placate her. She nodded and looked off into the distance before her, as though weighing his words before her on a balance. Her silence as she stared at him stretched on and on till he was sure they had been there for an eternity.

 

“Will you do it?” he asked slowly.

 

“I will…but there is a cost.” She replied, still looking straight ahead.

 

“What? What is it? Anything.”

 

“This wish relies on the strength of your desire. There is one thing that impedes this desire. Something dear to you. Something…precious.” 

 

Her eyes on him felt like fires piercing him, from his head and his toes, the flames meeting at a point on his chest where he knew the object of his desire that she spoke of sat. It called to him now. It pleaded it’s case. It was a harmless bauble, a handy charm that had aided him greatly in the past. Where would he be without it?

 

“I would be in a world where they live.” He whispered aloud. And suddenly, the fires did not hurt as much as they had. He pulled the ring out of his breast pocket and held it out to the Valar before him, fighting the impulse to pull back as Yavanna reached for it. He focused on the thought of Erebor, no longer the Lonely Mountain…having never _been_ the Lonely Mountain.

 

Yavanna took it silently, wrapping her slender fingers about it while never looking away from him. “The bravest of those in all of Middle Earth…it will be done, littlest one. You have made the greatest choice of all…the most selfless sacrifice.” Bilbo had words of gratitude and praise balancing on the tip of his tongue, and yet all he could do was stare as she stood and seemed to fade into the distance, and he continued to stare even as the cloak enveloping his shoulders seemed to rise and spread, covering him entirely till he was in a world of warmth and muffled green, floating in the comfort of a new hope.

 

***************************************************************************************

 

When Bilbo woke up to his bedroom ceiling staring down at him, and his bed’s cushions surrounding him, and Shire birds chirping outside his window, he came to two conclusions simultaneously. That this was a dream, or perhaps the entire ordeal with the dragon and the armies and such had been a dream.

 

It was in this state of confusion and self doubt that followed Bilbo for a good two moons before Gandalf came rolling through town. He had been so excited to see Gandalf’s face, he had nearly blurted out everything to do with the Adventure, and the war, and Yavanna. Instead, he inquired politely as to Gandalf’s business, before asking (as politely as he could) if he knew anything of a Kingdom called Erebor, which Bilbo had ‘overheard a few Rangers in Bree discussing’. 

 

Gandalf, completely unaware of anything afoot, sang the praises and glories of Erebor. “In fact, I was heading there myself after a short trip to Rivendell. It is time for the coronation of the Crown Prince Thorin. I am the only outsider invited to attend.” he said rather proudly, his chest puffing out a little. The statement, and the utterance of a name Bilbo had thought he would never again hear, seemed to strike him dumb for a moment. “That’s…that’s wonderful. A coronation! Why Gandalf, that’s going to be such fun!” he said quickly, though Gandalf seemed a little confused at Bilbo’s sudden silence followed by a torrent of high-pitched sentiments of wonder. 

 

Bilbo promptly excused himself with excuses of doily stitching and rushed back into Bag End. He wasn’t sure how long he had stood in the hallway, back pressed on his freshly painted green door. He wasn’t sure how long it took him before all reason fled him and, for the second time in his life (or rather, for the first in this new one) he found himself gathering everything he needed (musn’t forget the handkerchief this time) and rushing out the door and after Gandalf like a fauntling.

 

It was decided. If the mountain would not go to him, he would just have to go to the mountain.

 

It was time, he decided, for this Hobbit to go on an adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> Random scenario generated: You get one wish to make the world a better place, but you can only have one. Choose wisely. (write in 30 min)
> 
> You can find [this fic](http://iwillgodown.tumblr.com/post/137627848954/one-wish-for-the-better), and a few others, on [my tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/iwillgodown)
> 
> If you'd like to prompt me something/anything, just tell me in the comments, or my tumblr. I don't really mind if its anon or not, as long as you don't feel upset when I can't tag you in it due to anonymity :-/

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Twist of Memory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7097170) by [StrivingArtist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist/pseuds/StrivingArtist)




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